No Turning Back
by ArieSemir
Summary: AU – Gaheris Rhade killed Dylan Hunt and is captain of the Andromeda. Things aren’t going so well on the ship or with the CW’s dwindling allies, so Tyr and Beka go on a little adventure to make things better… or so they hope. NOW COMPLETE!
1. Prologue

Author's Note: As I recently promised, here is the prologue to another Andromeda story I had languishing on my hard drive. I also have a ficlet I wrote for Beka Day '06 which I'll be posting when I'm done here. And then it's REALLY off to bed.

TITLE: No Turning Back

RATING: PG (K+) for now, possibly PG-13 (T) later on.

PAIRINGS: Gaheris/Beka, Tyr/Beka (scandalous!)

SUMMARY: Um… I wrote this a long time ago. Oh yeah. AU – Gaheris Rhade killed Dylan Hunt (as in _The Unconquerable Man_) and is captain of the Andromeda. Things aren't going so well on the ship or with the Commonwealth's dwindling allies, so Tyr and Beka go on a little adventure to make things better… or so they hope.

Read, enjoy, review!

Prologue:

When he saw her, Gaheris kissed Beka and smiled. "Thank you for returning so soon." It was a rare thing these days that Andromeda's captain smiled, and despite everything, Beka was happy to see it.

"I'm glad to be back." Her mouth felt dry as she spoke.

Gaheris's eyes narrowed. "Are you all right? Your pulse is racing, and your pupils are dilated." He gripped her hands. "Your skin is clammy."

"I'm tired. Okay, yes, I've been better, but I'd rather not talk about that right now. Trance can fill you in."

He kissed her hands and then dropped them. "As you like. Get some rest, and we'll talk about the reason I called you back early."

Beka nodded and left the captain's office. She hesitated when the hatch closed behind her, unsure of her destination. Gaheris, she knew, would be delighted to find her in his bed, but his quarters with their vaguely militant air were not arranged to soothe a distressed mind. Her own quarters on Andromeda usually suited her much better, but the luxury of the XO's quarters suddenly seemed foreign to her after a life begun and lived on a patched-together cargo ship. Her snug cabin on the Maru, she decided, would relax her the best, but first she had a stop to make.

"Andromeda, can you tell me where Trance is?"

"Trance Gemini is in her quarters. Beka, are you feeling well?" As she spoke, Andromeda's hologram appeared in the corridor wearing an expression of concern much like Gaheris had a few moments ago.

"I'll be fine. Could you ask Trance to meet me at Med deck?"

"Of course."

As Beka was several decks neared Medical than Trance, she arrived several minutes earlier. To her great surprise, she found Tyr searching through medicine cabinets when she entered.

He turned as she approached. "Back from your family reunion so soon?"

"He isn't family," Beka replied stiffly. "What are you doing?"

Instead of answering, Tyr held up a few small bottles and begun reading the labels.

Beka licked her lips. "I don't know what you're up to, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped. I'm here to talk with Trance about a personal medical issue."

"I would hate to intrude." He returned his attention to the open cabinet. "I had no idea the ship stored so many… diverse medications on board."

Beka clenched her fists, but before she could say anything, she heard Trance behind her. On his way out, Tyr dropped the bottles in front of Beka. She closed her eyes as he passed her.

"Hi Tyr… uh, bye Tyr," Trance said gaily and received no reply from her crewmate. "That was weird."

"You're telling me," Beka muttered. "So, uh, the reason I asked you… well, the reason I asked Andromeda to ask you to meet me here is, uh, I've been feeling pretty shaky since we got back."

Trance sighed, which Beka did not take as a good sign. She continued when the former showed no signs of speaking. "I can't stop thinking about it, you know. It just… it's like an itch, an itch I know I can't scratch, but it won't go away no matter how much I tell myself that. I know I'm usually all anti-medication, but I was wondering if maybe this time you could give me a little something…"

Trance busied herself sweeping up the bottles Tyr left on a small table, so she could organize the medications and avoid Beka's eyes, all at the same time. "Beka, I won't tell you whether I can't or won't give you what you're asking for… but if the case was that I couldn't, it would only be because you're too important to me and to… to other people for me to risk something so dangerous when I know you can overcome this on your own."

It took Beka a while to sort out the meaning of that convoluted statement. While she was thinking through what her friend had said, Trance frowned at the bottles she was shelving. "Beka, why were these medicines out?"

"I dunno," she replied. "Tyr was pawing through that cabinet when I came in, and he dropped those on his way out. It probably ties in with domination of the Known Worlds and the destruction of the Drago-Kazov Pride." There, that had sounded appropriately nonchalant. She did not trust her voice to remain so if she asked what exactly Tyr had taken from the cabinet.

She swallowed. "So, that's a no-go on the chemical help, huh?" This time she did not attempt to disguise the unhappiness in her voice.

Trance turned around to face her, but she still could not meet Beka's eyes. "No, I'm sorry. I can't imagine how hard this is for you, but please trust me when I say that you are strong enough to beat it. Maybe you could talk to Rev about some meditation."

"Yeah, I think I will. Thanks, Trance." Without waiting for a response she knew would be very sweet and sympathetic, she left Med deck, trying not to think of those little bottles.


	2. 1: Brownies and a Mission

A/N: No reviews so far, but it's cool. It hasn't been up long, and Andromeda fic isn't exactly in its heyday anymore. Still, I hope someone out there is enjoying this!

ON TO

Chapter 1:

That evening Beka spent in Rev's company, just as Trance had suggested. They talked about the old days and meditation and struggle. Most people would find it disconcerting to be in the presence of a Magog while discussing self-control, but Beka had always felt very comfortable around Rev, knowing that he was able to control his cravings every hour of every day. He gave her hope for her own self-discipline the way Gaheris, with his talk of a dominating will to power, could not.

Harper stopped by Mess while she was baking brownies even later that night, a habit she had taken up since the first Flash episode as a way to focus on something besides the addiction – and make hedonistic dessert in the process. He told her that he had been on his way back from one of the machine shops when he smelled chocolate decks away.

"Hey Beka, what is that heavenly smell?" He stared as he entered Mess. "Are you baking?"

Beka looked up from licking the bowl and mixing spoon. "Yeah, it's this thing I started a while ago. You wanna help with this?"

"It looks like you got everything under control."

"Nah." Beka shook her head. "This bowl is definitely a two-person job."

As they sat and talked, Beka explained why she had taken up baking, and Harper said he had noticed a rise in the amount of baked goods in Andromeda's pantry around the time she narrowly escape the clutches of Sam Profitt. He had just figured it was Andromeda's attempt to bring the crew closer together through comfort food.

Their conversation wandered. Tyr, Harper had noticed, had been acting even stranger than usual lately. Though the pair had eventually warmed up to each other, Harper said the Nietzschean was freaking him out a little, hanging around that locked cargo bay of his and giving the cold shoulder to Gaheris whenever they were in the same room.

"I'd pull the old 'lock 'em in a room till they work this out' gag," Harper concluded, "but I'm afraid only one of 'em would come out. I dunno, boss, it's gotten bad since you left on that mysterious errand of yours."

"No, Harper, you gotta wait till they cool, or you'll be talking funny for a week," Beka said as she pulled her brownies out of the oven.

"I know what you mean about Tyr. Sometimes I wonder if it's all supposed to be this way. We're struggling to rebuild this Commonwealth based on cooperation and justice and respect for everyone, but the two Nietzscheans on board can barely look at each other." She decided not to mention Tyr's strange behavior in Medical, sure Harper would know what the Nietzschean had been driving at. She was baking at 1 am to avoid thinking about Flash, not to rehash yet again her struggle with temptation over the past week.

A silence fell. Harper stopped licking the chocolate-covered spoon and gazed longingly at the tray of brownies. He frowned for a moment, then laughed. Beka looked at him quizzically.

"All right, Harper?"

"Yeah, great. My little guests are quiet for the first time in a month."

"Must be the chocolate. It's the solution to most of life's problems."

Beka found her way to her quarters on Andromeda an hour later, after the brownies were declared a total success, and she and Harper consumed about half of them. Her stomach hurt a little – it was a very large pan – but it was better than the relentless pull of Flash in her brain. She practiced meditation for a quarter of an hour and fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

The next morning, Beka awoke to Andromeda's hologram informing her that Gaheris had requested to speak with her at her earliest convenience. As she swung her feet to the floor and rose, her stomach woke up and began complaining. "Oof." She smiled and winced in the same motion.

A hot shower made her feel a little better, and she was almost back to herself by the time she met Gaheris in his office. He stood up when she entered, and this time she went to him and kissed him for a good minute. Shock and pleasure showed on his face when they separated.

"Good morning," he managed. "You're obviously feeling better."

"Much," she agreed. "But no more brownies."

He smiled. "Is that why Harper was ten minutes late to his shift this morning looking a little green?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that. So Andromeda said you wanted to talk to me?"

"I do." Gaheris left her and returned to his desk. "Please sit."

Beka raised her eyebrows. "We're sitting around the desk? Must be serious."

"It is. I'm sure that you've noticed the tension on the ship between Tyr and myself. Since you left, Andromeda has reported increasingly suspicious behavior on his behalf, and our interactions have become difficult of late."

"Yeah, Harper told me that things were a little… weird. But I don't see what any of that has to do with me."

"If I could kick Tyr off this ship right now, I would," he began.

Beka felt her good mood waning. For as long as she had been aboard Andromeda, she knew that the two Nietzscheans would never be the best of friends, but this talk of expulsion and what felt like conspiracy rubbed her the wrong way. She shivered.

"But we need him, and he needs us. Specifically, I need him to negotiate with the Schopenhauer and Enkindu systems, turn them once and for all against the Sabra-Jaguar Pride. We have too many obligations with the rest of our allies to risk sending the Andromeda into such a dangerous region of space, and I do not believe the prime ministers of either world would welcome me inflaming the wrath of that pride any further."

"I see. And you want me to go with Tyr to keep an eye on him."

"I didn't word it quite that way when I told Tyr about this mission… but yes. I'm also hoping you can smooth over any diplomatic incidents he might take it in his head to incite."


	3. 2: Foreign Irritants

A/N: Ohhh-kay, well, I hope someone's out there enjoying this… or will one day enjoy it…

ON TO

Chapter 2:

They were taking the Maru, of course. Missions into dangerous territory where hostile enemies held vast influence always seemed to require the presence of her beat-up cargo vessel. Gaheris and Harper had outfitted the Maru with old Commonwealth stock weapons and defense systems, insofar as he could handle them, so she had the comfort that she could inflict some heavy damage on a pirate that might see them as easy prey. Against the combined Saba-Jaguar fleet, though, things might not go so well.

Since she had begun prepping for this mission – making sure the Maru was in top form, running drills with Tyr – a sense of unease had settled on her. It has started out very gradual, but now that they were running the final prep sequence, she could feel nerves like tiny insects crawling over her skin. She ran a hand unconsciously down her arm.

"Are you all right, Captain Valentine?" a mocking voice called from behind her. "You've repeated that gesture six times this hour."

She shifted in the pilot's seat to glare at him. 'Thanks for your concern, but I'm fine. I should check the environmental controls one more time. Maybe Trance brought some new plant aboard that isn't agreeing with me." She unbuckled herself and stalked through the cockpit.

When she passed Tyr, he lay a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up in surprise to find his face less than a foot from hers.

"I haven't noticed any foreign irritants aboard."

"Oh, um, in that case, I'll go finish this sequence." She ducked away and returned to her post. As she sat and buckled herself in, she took a few deep breaths. The bastard loved it, throwing her off-balance like that. What did he mean by looking at her like that and then saying something stupid about irritants? "Bastard," she muttered. A low laugh floated through the cockpit in response.

They remained silent for the first hour or so as Beka piloted the slipstream and Tyr checked and re-checked the weapons' readiness. The beeping and buzzing started to grate on her as the routes became easier.

"Tyr, the Maru is not the Andromeda. The Maru will never be the Andromeda. If Charlemagne shows up at the end of this slipstream route, we're screwed no matter what." She whipped her head around to glare at him for a moment. "You're driving me nuts here."

"Forgive me," he rumbled. "I did not mean-"

"Didn't you?" It was easier to confront Tyr when she was not actually looking at him. "You've been acting more mysterious than usual lately, and I wanna know why."

"Is this your assignment? Escort the anti-social element to his mission, take notes on him if you can't re-socialize him?"

"Oh please," she scoffed. "Spare me the wounded dignity routine. And spare me the arrogance. The non-Nietzschean among us do have something to contribute."

"Are you denying that our valorous captain assigned you to keep me on his leash?"

A bizarre mental image rose in Beka's mind, and she could not stop a laugh from escaping her. "I don't know what a leash has to do with the two of you. Yes, he did ask me to avert any diplomatic crises you might cause because we all know what a friendly guy you are."

She stopped mid-thought. "Hey, no changing the subject! I'm asking you what you were doing in Medical the other day, and you're answering me."

"As I explained, I was conducting an inventory of the medicinal stock out of simple curiousity."

The stress that had been building inside Beka snapped at Tyr's typically evasive reply. Knowing she was about to do a very stupid, dangerous thing, she jerked the Maru out of slipstream to a dead halt. She would never have tried that with the Andromeda, but she knew what her little vessel could and could not handle. He shook and creaked and blared ominously, but he held together.

After unbuckling herself, she leapt out of her chair and stormed over to Tyr. "That is the last lie you are ever going to tell me," she hissed. "Are we agreed?"

He looked at her speculatively for a long minute. "If you insist on tearing your ship apart every time I'm less than forthcoming with you," he finally replied, "then yes, we're agreed." His tone was hard and mocking, but there was something soft in his eyes as they flicked over her.

"So what were you doing there?"

A klaxon screamed at the pair before Tyr answered, and he smiled. "If your ship survives that supremely idiotic maneuver of yours, I'll tell you."

She glared for what felt like the eightieth time that day and returned to her console to see what the problem was. "Oh shit," she muttered. "You picked a bad place to piss me off. I have to go down to the engine room. You, stay here. If anything at all shows up on sensors, gimme a shout and… try to looking menacing." With that, she dashed away into the bowels of the Maru.

The engines were overheating rapidly, and the slipstream drive might have fried. She had dropped out of slipstream into busy Sabra territory. Given a few hours, she could have the Maru running again, in which time a Sabra-Jaguar fleet could assemble, slip to her location, and reduce the Maru to so much space dust. She ran between the engineering console and the engines, and after awhile, the alarms started dying down.

A proximity alert sounded, but before Beka could activate the comm. and ask Tyr was going on, she felt the Maru shudder as it fired several missiles in a rapid burst. The engine readouts were hovering just below the red-line, and the slipstream drive looked functional for at least one more slip, so she hurried back to the cockpit.

'Tyr, what the hell was that? I told you to warn me when something approached, not blast it out of the sky." She slid into her chair and buckled herself in. A few taps on her console brought up the sensor data they had just received. "Pirates," she said disgustedly. "Do the Sabra subsidize these guys or what?"

"I shouldn't be surprised," Tyr rumbled. "The Sabra-Jaguar pride possess an exceptionally large fleet but an even larger area to protect and monitor, especially on their borders. A few tame pirates can keep the locals in their place while the destroyers keep the Dragans at bay."

"Well, it looks like you scared 'em off for now. Great, now let's get outta here." She turned to look at him and grinned. "Okay, maybe you do know what you're doing. I'd still appreciate a heads-up next time."

She lowered her voice and affected a stern expression. "Beka, I'm going to scare the shit out of a couple of pirates now, just thought you should know." Her voice became high and breathy. "Okay, Tyr, thanks for letting me know." Now her voice returned to normal. "See now, what that so hard?"

Without waiting for a response, she turned back around. "This is me warning you to brace for slipstream."


	4. 3: Cooperation

A/N: Oh, come on. I'm not a big review slut (okay, I am, but I try not to annoy my readers with my constant review sluttery), but please just drop me a line to let me know someone's enjoying this. Unless, of course, no one's enjoying this, and I'm just kidding myself! Ha! That would teach me!

ON TO:

Chapter 3:

They arrived at the Schopenhauer homeworld on time and in one piece, much to Beka's relief. As soon as they had landed, she requested a team of engineers to repair the Maru beyond her stop-gap measures that had brought them to the system. She trusted the engineers to do their work, but no one else she met seemed particularly disposed to be of any use to her. Her eyes strayed toward her Nietzschean companion, and she wondered if he were not a large part of the reason for the hostility she had received from the moment she entered the system.

The port authority bureaucrat who greeted her upon sensing the Maru leave slipstream, for example, had seemed friendly enough when Beka transmitted her identification but soured as soon as he opened visual contact. Beka reminded herself to center the projected image on herself the next time she found herself in territory recently liberated from Nietzschean rule.

"Your identification is satisfactory, Captain," the fellow had begun, "but you will understand that this is a tense time for us. We cannot allow anyone to dock who does not possess an approved itinerary or security clearance blue or higher."

"Can't allow us to dock? I don't know if you missed the memo, but we have an appointment with the prime minister of this system and of Enkindu, plus this ship really needs some repairs. I don't think it would help any of us if he exploded and rained down fiery debris while you bureaucrats were busy filling out and losing the requisite triplicate."

"I'll contact the prime minister's office as soon as I can, but you must be patient. I-"

"Nuh-uh, no patience. I'm sure you have a parking space reserved down there for your liberators from the Sabra-Jaguar pride. You can point it out to me, or I'll find it on my own. Valentine out." She grabbed the controls and hoped that one of the protocols in the Commonwealth charter forbade fire upon allied, if annoying, vessels entering member territory. Authorization came from the port authority a moment before she would have activated the planetary defense system.

"And Captain Rhade sent you to keep me out of diplomatic entanglements?"

She just laughed in reply.

Since landing, she had continued to receive the brush-off from everyone with an iota of power down to the assistant deputy liaison attaché sent to her after an hour to escort her and Tyr to the ministerial estate. The woman had insisted on seeing Beka's records back to her FTA's pilot license and membership in the salvage workers' union. Assistant Timareau very nearly refused to allow Tyr off the Maru, citing a shady repossession he had once performed for Charlemagne Bolivar's second cousin's first wife, once a contender for the title of Matriarch. Beka dug around in her database until she found a complete copy of the Commonwealth charter and shoved Timareau's face toward the screen.

"Cooperation. Living up to promises and obligations. Commonwealth-wide security standards. Minimal prejudice. If the man restoring the Commonwealth can trust Tyr on his flagship, you can trust him in your system."

Of course, how much longer Gaheris would keep Tyr on the Andromeda and how much trust remained in that relationship were… subject to debate.

The prime minister of Schopenahauer was no happier to see them. Though Gaheris had arranged this meeting months ago, she still managed to give off the impression that Tyr and Beka had barged in on her during the busiest day of her ministry without the least consideration.

"Please don't mistake me, Captain Valentine, the Schopenhauer and Enkindu systems are and will always be grateful to the Commonwealth for delivering us from Nietzschean oppression." Although Nematine Barane knew full well that Tyr had no association with those Nietzscheans, she eyed him as though expecting him to produce a Sabra-Jaguar battle group from his pocket.

"But you must understand that we are experiencing constant harassment from our neighbors, who have made it clear that continued alliance with your Commonwealth will provoke increased hostile action which we simply cannot afford as we try to re-organize our civil society."

From the other side of the prime minister's desk, Beka felt she had just been subjected to a well-rehearsed and well-worded but firm dismissal. She found herself at a loss for words and hoped Tyr could handle this one. After all, Valentine-ology had brought them this far. She did not quite dare glance at him in supplication.

A silence fell over the gleaming office. Beka watched Prime Minister Barane grow impatient and then nervous under Tyr's gaze. Maybe he knew what he weas doing after all, she though as she saw the first beads of sweat break out on the woman's forehead. Five minutes passed, and Beka began feeling a little nervous herself.

"I've been considering your options, Prime Minister," Tyr said slowly, so softly that Nematine had to lean forward in her seat. "After careful though, it seems to me that you have two. You may drop all association with the Commonwealth and negotiate your return into the Sabra-Jaguar fold, or you may strengthen your ties with the Commonwealth, request the deployment of a fleet if necessary, and build alliances with other former slave worlds to offset the loss of trade you're currently suffering. There is no middle ground for you or for Enkindu, of which I hope you will remind Anton Pret." By the time he finished, a note of anger and contempt had entered and cut through his calm words.

Nematine hastened to assure them that neither she nor the other prime minister wished to cut off ties with the Commonwealth and that they had no plans to re-join the Sabra-Jaguar unity. After this initial tense exchange, Schopenhauer's prime minister called in a few top advisors, and they debated the terms of Schopenhauer's adherence to the Commonwealth and how far mutual protection reached.

After they broke for an hour in the middle of the day, Anton Pret joined the civilized fray. Gaheris would not be happy with some of the concessions Tyr and Beka had to make, but he would even more upset if they had lost the systems entirely. Beka wondered if he had been aware of how close to opting-out Enkindu and Schopenhauer had come.


	5. 4: Something New

A/N: Meanies

Chapter 4:

That night Anton invited Tyr and Beka to a state dinner. When Beka pled a lack of appropriate dress, he then invited her on a state-sponsored shopping spree, and she could not refuse. She was a little reluctant to leave Tyr by himself for so long after Gaheris's warning, but he could not be persuaded to accompany Breka and the assistant Pret assigned to her. And she could hardly show up to a state dinner in leather pants, though she was certain Tyr would do just that.

The shopping trip ended with an hour before the dinner back at the newly-established embassy. After she dropped off her new acquisitions in her room, she walked across the room to Tyr's suite and knocked.

"Tyr, you aren't in there planning a coup, are you? Gaheris would never let me hear the end of it."

As Tyr opened his door, the scents of soap and aftershave wafted out behind him. To Beka's surprise, he was not wearing leather but tuxedo pants and a tan button-up shirt. Her eyes widened. "Wow." She flicked her eyes over his figure, making no attempt to hide her admiration. "You'd better not show up looking prettier than me."

"I'll do my best."

"Great. I gotta go clean up, and I'll be back in an hour." She returned to her own suite and stripped off her clothes, then stepped into her shower. As hot water sluiced down her tired body, the stress she had carried all day loosed its hold on her and melted down the drain. She began singing while she washed her hair and continued her solo as she reluctantly left the spacious bathroom wrapped in a towel.

And then she screamed and nearly dropped her covering.

"Tyr! What the hell are you doing here?" As she glanced at him, part of her brain insisting on noting how good he looked, clean-shaved in a tailored tux.

He shrugged. "I was bored, and nothing our hosts so thoughtfully provided could hold my attention." Judging by the intent gaze that lingered on her, Beka thought she was accomplishing that pretty well.

"Right. Well, I'm normally more than happy to entertain you but I'm a little naked right now."

"Yes, I can see that." As she spoke, he had shifted from leaning on the wall to an upright position and then started walking towards her. Her hand tightened on the towel. "We could order in our dinner and make our apologies to the ministers tomorrow," he said in a voice like velvet. "I can't imagine that anything in those shopping bags could make you any lovelier than you are right now."

By the time he finished speaking, he had backed her against the frame of the bathroom door. Just before he could lean into kiss her, she threw a hand up against his chest. "I don't that's a good idea," she said a little shakily. "We have this state thing to attend and besides…"

His hand closed over hers. "And besides, you're romantically attached to our valiant captain. Every day I thin about how I might have won you first had I not allowed fear to guide my actions." His low voice was a caress. "Please don't repeat my mistake." He lifted her hand and laid feather-soft kisses on her fingers.

"Stop it," she whispered raggedly. "What are you doing?" She made a half-hearted attempt to pull her hand back but only succeeded in drawing Tyr closer.

When he spoke, she could feel his warm breath tickle her ear. "I ask but a single night, Rebecca."

She thought she answered with a no, but it was so quiet that perhaps she only imagined herself speak. Whatever might have happened next was stalled by a sharp knock on the door.

"Captain Valentine?" a young-sounding male voice called through the door. "The banquet will begin in half an hour."

Beka took advantage of Tyr's surprise to slip away, grab the clothes she had laid out to wear, and hurry into the bathroom. Her hands were shaking as she dressed and made herself presentable for the formal occasion to follow. When she emerged, Tyr was back to his laconic self, lounging in an armchair.

"Shall we make our fashionably late entrance, then?" he asked over his shoulder. His eyes lingered on her a second after his words died, but he soon returned to the book he produced from somewhere.

As a finishing touch, she unwrapped a ridiculously expensive bottle of perfume she had purchased on state credit. The employee at the perfume counter had spent half an hour with her, finding the perfect scent and warned her to use only a couple of drops, as the costlier oils were more powerful than anything was accustomed to. Now she pulled out the stopped and touched the glass to her wrists and throat. As she capped the vial, she noted with satisfaction that her hands no longer shook.

"Let's do this."

Tyr rose from the chair and gave her a slight bow. "As my lady commands." She ignored the shiver that ran up his spine when he said that.

A young soldier was waiting outside when they left the room. He shot them a curious look before leading them through a few dozen twisting corridors to an enormous hall, where he bowed and left them.


	6. 5: Diplomacy

A/N: Much thanks to prin69 for banishing the shameful 0 reviews tally!

Chapter 5:

A low roar of conversation bounced and echoed off the polished stone walls, partly absorbed by the rugs and tapestries worked predominantly in the colors of the two world's flags. People were sipping drinks and nibbling on _hors d'oeuvres _which all seemed to imply that they had not arrived too late. The two prime ministers and various other governmental officials stood in a long receiving line, shaking hands and smiling.

"And that," Beka murmured, "is why I am not a politician. Rhade's much better to all that." When her turn came up, though, she wore a brilliant smile and shook hands and impressed the ministers with her wit.

For his part, Tyr charmed the other guests to the best of his considerable ability. Beka wondered what he was up to, talking quietly with all sorts of characters and flitting from one conversation to another. She was not jealous, she told herself firmly, but it was a little rude of him to ignore her while he schemed with her strangers – and it was more than a little shock after their encounter in her suite earlier than evening.

But Beka did not exactly lack for attention herself. At dinners like these, there were always a few hoity-toity dignitaries who saw this cargo pilot as beneath them, but there were also the more sensible who ignored their tiresome peers and were glad to converse with someone as lively as her. That was a word she heard often applied to her: lively. Spirited. Dirty old men usually added feisty to that list.

People exclaimed as they did without fail when she declined to drink. Honestly, respectable people made a bigger deal of this discovery than the criminals she knew. It was nothing she cared to explain, and shady characters understood her desire to keep her secrets as they kept their own. Respectable people, on the other hand, wanted to pry and analyze her little oddity and only barely managed to restrain themselves from throwing her under a microscope right there and then.

There was dancing, as there usually was, and Tyr danced expertly with her, as he always did. She had enough control of herself that she successfully convinced herself that she did not feel in the least uncomfortable when his hand slipped around her waist. She was perfectly okay when he leaned in to relate a funny story and his cheek brushed hers. She did not mind it a bit when he kissed her hand at the end of the dance with a mocking smile dancing on his lips.

Some of the more unpleasant moments of the evening came about when people asked her why Captain Rhade was absent from the dinner. In truth, she could not say exactly why he had chosen not to accompany her, and it would not do to tell them what he had told her, that his presence might piss off the local Nietzscheans. No one wanted to hear that.

But most of the dinner was rather more enjoyable.

"I despise the Sabras just as much as anyone here," one matronly woman had confided to Beka. "but you have the most beautiful Nietzschean specimen with you tonight."

Beka gritted her teeth and smiled. Whenever she was traveling with Tyr or Gaheris – or occasionally even Harper – women were not shy about checking out her male companion and telling her all about it. Right now, Tyr was not helping things any, deeply involved in low conversation with a woman perhaps ten years older than him. The woman's smoky gaze should have set him on fire.

"He makes a nice wall hanging," she agreed. "But I think his new friend is going to be disappointed." Gaheris would not like to know that she was engaging in idle gossip, especially concerning one of her crewmates. In her defense, though, the night had grown exceedingly long, and she found herself barely able to keep her eyes open. The dancing had kept her on her feet between Tyr, Anton Pret, lesser ministers, and a few clumsy bureaucrats.

With a skilled partner, she could usually fake competence on the dance floor; but if her partner could not lead, she could not follow, and the whole thing degenerated into a humiliating charade. This was another worry she never had when she found herself in the criminal element, she thought desperately during one such debacle. Crooks knew when they couldn't dance.

Relief flooded through her when she noticed people beginning to leave in a slow but steady trickle. For a few minutes, she tried without success to catch Tyr's eye, and when that failed, she left her neighbors and walked across the room to fetch him. His conversation showed no signs of slowing anytime soon, so she finally interrupted with an apology and informed Tyr that she was going to find someone who could show her back to her suite. He could come along or not; she doubted he would respond well to an order on her part.

Much to her annoyance, he did not choose to follow her, but she was not going to wait around now after she had stated her intention to leave. And adding insult to injury, she could not find anyone to lead her back to her rooms. With a shrug, she set off through the ministerial estate, hoping that the embassy would appear through the corridors she thought she remembered.

"If you continue that way," a voice behind her announced, "you'll find yourself surrounded by a contingent of armed guards in about five minutes."

She turned. "Thanks, Tyr. I don't suppose you would bestow up on me the knowledge

of the route to the embassy."

"If my lady will follow," he said with a smile and an arm extended. She was so tired that she took it and did not register the brief expression of surprise which crossed his face.

The walk back to the embassy passed without incident until Beka arrived at her door and began fumbling in the purse she had bought just for the occasion for her passkey. "Oh shit," she muttered. "I know I put it in there tonight. I remember… first the compact, then the lipstick, the very small gun, and the passkey." As she named the items in her purse, she plucked each one out and then dropped it back in. Except the last item she named was not there.

"The Saur Niner," Tyr commented from behind her, "excellent choice. I can't believe that our hosts would have approved, though."

"They would have approved if a bored Sabra company had decided to crash the party.

Tyr, could you please rip this door off its hinges so I can go in and get some sleep?"

He peered closely at the door and ran his finger along an invisible line near one edge. "I'm afraid not."

She looked at him incredulously – surely he could outmaneuver a door – and he continued. "I could physically separate the door from the wall, yes, but it would bring that contingent of armed guards I mentioned running."

"So no sleep?"

"Correct."

"Argh!" She began pounding the door, more in an effort to vent some frustration than to open the thing, but Tyr stopped her after only a few blows. His arms wrapped around her to trap her wrists in his strong hands.

"There is no need for these hysterics," he said rather more loudly then necessary. Then he lowered his voice and murmured into her ear. "You can stay with me."

When she struggled, he allowed her to turn so she was facing him with a skeptical look on her face. "I don't think that's a good idea. Don't make me explain why."

He chuckled. "Do you have any others?"

Damn. He did have her there.

"Just as I suspected. You can sleep on the couch if it would make you feel better."

"What a gentleman."

They left the corridor and entered Tyr's suite after he unlocked and opened it with one smooth motion. Beka was pleased to notice that it was exactly like hers in every respect except the color of the wallpaper and furniture. And hers were prettier. With a content sigh, she flopped on the couch and kicked off her shoes.

"Okay, thanks for letting me crash here. Now go away and let me sleep." She straightened and peered into his bedroom, visible through an open door. "No wait, first get me a pillow and blankets, if you're going to be so cruel as to make a lady sleep on the couch."

He leaned on the back of the couch, forearms brushing the plush upholstery. "I am not forcing you to do anything." He gave her a slow smile. "You are more than welcome to join me."

"Very funny." She yawned. "Come on, gimme a blanket. I'm too scantily clad to sleep without one."

As he left for the bathroom, he called over his shoulder that she could fetch one for herself if she so desired. With a put-upon sigh, she pushed herself up from the couch and shuffled into the bedroom. It was spotless, of course, with only a faint aroma of aftershave or cologne to indicate that anyone was staying there.

She appropriated a huge feather pillow and starting yanking the big duvet off the bed. The comforter was so well tucked in, though, that it proved too much for her fatigued strength. "Ah, screw it," she muttered. "He's not actually going to try anything. He was just messing with me, trying to see how far he could take it. It was probably all a joke. Funny guy, that Tyr."

The bed was large enough that two or three people could share it without touching, which was what she told herself as she slid under the sheets and fluffed a pillow underneath her. By the time Tyr had finished in the bathroom, her breathing had slowed, though she was not yet fully asleep. "Mmm," she slurred, "took you up on that after all. Night, Tyr."

The lights flicked out, and she felt a heavy presence press into the mattress beside her. She thought he whispered something back, but she was already too far removed from an alert state of mind to catch it.

That night Beka slept heavily. When she finally awoke, Tyr was occupied in another room, and she found that she had squirmed out of her clothes. She quickly drew a sheet over her body when he entered the bedroom. Fortunately she still wore her matching underwear, so he could not have seen too much.

He told her that he had called someone an hour ago to unlock her room and that she could go back anytime she chose. As they talked, she held the sheet against her with one hand and fished around in the bed for her clothes with the other. After a few minutes she found them, banished Tyr from the room, and changed into her wrinkled clothes. She hoped no one would see her padding from Tyr's rooms to her own in last night's clothes.

A hot shower woke her up, along with a pot of coffee and muffins thoughtfully placed on her nightstand. Fully dressed and clean for the next round of negotiations, Beka was about to go ask Tyr if someone had left an extra key for her when he came in her suite, after a very brief knock. He told her that no one had left a key but that he could easily call the person who had unlocked the door if she liked.

"Well, I'll try one more time," she sighed and rummaged through her drawers without much hope of success. Her bathroom and cabinet drawers yielded nothing. She made a half-hearted search of her nightstand, and to her great surprise, located the key.


	7. 6: A Tense Morning

Chapter 6:

Sometime as she was finding her way back into her own rooms and preparing for the day, excitement had started building in the halls around her. She could not have said when she first noticed it, but by the time she found her key, it was obvious that something exceptional was happening. People hurried past her door far more often than usual, and they all whispered. When she peered out her door, she was shocked to see the faces of those passers-by pale and tense. No one stopped to talk to her, even when she hesitantly called out to a few of them.

She knocked on Tyr's door when they were due to leave to meet the ministers. He opened and, as always, displayed no surprise at all to see her standing there.

"What's going on?" she asked without preamble as she walked in. "People out there this far away from panicking." She held her forefinger and her thumb close together and peered through the slit.

"You presume that I know what's happening?" He grinned. "You flatter me, but I'm just as ignorant as you are in this instance. Shall we attend to our ministers and perhaps find the answer to your query?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You sound even more pretentious than normal this morning. And you only do that when you're really pleased or really pissed off about something. You know something about this."

He was the very picture of innocence, which meant that he was as guilty as sin. Harper was exactly the same, come to think of it. All men probably were, except Gaheris. It wasn't that he possessed an uncommon virtue; it was just that he habitually wore an expression like something was weighing on his conscience. Killing your best friend and seeing what kind of crap future that led to did that to a person.

"Well, you're not going to give anything up if we're just standing here," she said as she rolled her eyes. They walked through the corridors of the embassy to the underground tunnels that took them to other portions of the rambling ministerial estate. Dozens of anxious people rushed past them in all directions, but thanks to Tyr's intimidating stature, they stayed out of the pair's way.

Beka had no idea what this low-level panic might mean: anything from a bad opinion poll to an unearthed spy to…

"Politics," she muttered. "Can't you just grab one of them and get 'em to tell us what's going on?" As she spoke, she gestured at the frightened passers by. "Shake 'em down or whatever it is you do."

Tyr cast a side-long glance at her. "Really, Beka, I shudder to imagine your mental image of me. In any case, I would not attempt to do so right now. Gossip tends to twist the facts beyond recognition. Granted, there's usually a grain of truth in rumors, but it may be buried very deep."

"Right," Beka said, "like Harper's telephone game."

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "I'm sure. We have an appointment with the ministers; I suggest we keep it."

As they made their way through the rambling ministerial estate, nearing the highest offices, the panicky crowd filled the corridors. Beka could feel the level of tension ride steadily around her, could smell the beads of sweat that glistened on shiny foreheads. She bet that Tyr could probably hearing racing heartbeats and see widened pupils.

With a nasty shock that made her stomach lurch, Beka noticed that more and more fearful, even hateful glances were directed toward them. Eyes narrowed and jaws tightened, muscles tensed and hands curled into fists. Unconsciously, she drifted closer to Tyr.

"What the hell?" she whispered. "You didn't get someone's daughter in a bad way, did you?"

A snort of laughter startled Beka and the others who heard it. She smiled back, grateful for that little chuckle.

"Whatever happens," he murmured, "try not to look as though someone just fire-bombed the Maru and sold the rest of it for spare parts."

"Him," she said absently.

He looked around. "Excuse me?"

"The Maru," she replied, "He's a he, not an it."

"Of course. Please forgive me."

She smiled easily this time and found that doing so lifted the tense feelings that had begun to gather through her body. "Yeah, just don't call the Maru an 'it' again, or you'll be the one looking sorry after I kick your Nietzschean ass back to Fountainhead."

They continued their habitual light banter until they reached the large secretariat, the coordination center of the ministerial staffs. Beka noticed the dirty looks, but they did not weigh on her any longer. She actually felt a little sorry for all the people she saw, obviously freaking out about something and unable to do anything about it.

When they arrived at the secretariat, the crowd from the hallways seemed to have multiplied by a factor of at least ten. She gasped at the sight of so many milling people, yelling and shoving each other. Even Tyr looked surprise when she glanced up at him, eyes a tiny bit wider than usual. Standing just outside the doorway, he surveyed the room as if surveying a battle scene, then nodded to himself. He gave her a slow grin that made her heart speed up a little, then took her hand in his and plunged into the foray.

Even in the midst of their distraction, people got out of Tyr's way when they saw him. As they passers by in the hallway had done, many of the people here gave the two of them – mostly Tyr – scared and suspicious looks. When the two of them had made their way to the secretariat, Beka had assumed that the hostility was related to who they were, to their association with the fledgling Commonwealth. Now it struck her that almost no one was glaring at her – they hardly noticed her – that it was Tyr and his bone blades where their eyes were trained.

It was the Sabra-Jaguars, she realized with a start. Something potentially catastrophic had happened late last night or early that morning. Her hand tightened on Tyr's. She did not want to say anything here, in the middle of this mass, but curiosity and sense of dread washed over her.

In a few minutes, they slowed and stopped in front of a familiar desk and executive assistant. Unlike the rest of the crowd, the secretary managed to ignore Tyr when he shoved his way to the desk. Beka let go of his hand and leaned over top it.

"Uh, good morning," she said. "We have an appointment-"

"All the Prime Minister's appointments for today are cancelled," the man said sharply. "We're extremely busy right now. Please accept our apologies." During that brief exchange, he never raised his eyes to see whom he was addressing.

"Apology not accepted," she replied loudly. She slapped a hand down a few inches from the man's face.

His eyes snapped up to her. "Listen, I don't care-" He stopped short when he saw Tyr. Beka hated that she was discounted so quickly, but if this got them some answers, she would not object.

"Why don't you try listening for once?" Tyr asked quietly. "We have an appointment with the Prime Minister, and since no one bothered to notify us about a cancellation, I will assume that the meeting will proceed as scheduled unless you give me a very good reason to consider changing our plans."

The secretary's mouth hung open. "You mean you don't know what's going on?"

Beka hoped the answer to the madness of the morning was forthcoming. "No," she said. "Everyone's too busy glaring holes in us."

He looked between them for a moment and sighed. "Maybe you should see Minister Barane." He pressed a button on his keyboard and spoke a few quiet words into a speaker. "Go on in."

As they left the crowded lobby for a slightly quieter corridor, Beka grinned. "You know, we make a pretty okay team. I set 'em up, you knock 'em down."

He smiled. "I couldn't agree more."

They arrived at the door Beka remembered as Nematine Barane's office, and she knocked. She held her breath for a moment as they waited.

"Come in."

They entered to almost a tranquil scene, what seemed no more than a few ministers gathered for coffee and conversation. Beka recognized everyone from the banquet, though she could not place all the names. Minister Barane nodded at the others, who murmured goodbyes and filed out, casting curious glances behind themselves. All in all, it was the warmest welcome they'd had all morning.

"Please sit down," Nematine said in her smooth voice like honey. She really did sound like a politician. "My assistant warned me that you two would not be dissuaded. Oh, would you mind closing the door, Mr. Anasazi?"

Tyr drifted to the door without a sound Beka could hear and shut the door with a click. When he returned, she gestured for both of them to sit. As the three looked across Nematine's desk at each other, Beka could see a few cracks peering through the Prime Minister's serene mask. Maybe she had been hanging around Tyr too much, but she thought she could see the tension in the other woman's jaw and the way she swallowed a little too often.

"I suppose you two deserve to know what's happening right now. I can't spare much time this morning, but I have a few minutes to tell you to get out of here."

That was not what Beka had expected. If a few divisions of the Sabra-Jaguar fleet had shown up in the Schopenhauer or Enkindu system, she would have imagined that the humans would be mustering all the strength they could gather. "Leave?" she asked. "Why? No, first of all, what is it that has everyone here so worked up?"

Nematine barked a short, surprised laugh. "No, I don't imagine anyone did tell you. If I do tell you, you must promise to evacuate the system and not attempt any of the heroics for which your captain is so famous."

"Okay, save our asses, got it. We can do that."

"A Sabra-Jaguar battle group dropped out of slipstream a few hours ago. We are unaware of their intentions as of yet, but early reports do not look good for us. We assume that their intentions are hostile."

"As you should," Tyr broke in. "They are not stopping in for a social call."

Nematine almost smiled. "Thank you." Beka thought incredulously that the woman was mocking Tyr. "That is precisely what I have been hearing since outlying sensors first picked up the ships. By doing so, they have already broken the terms of our most recent treaty."

"I know I'll gladly get out of here as soon as you say the word, but you do know that Gaheris is gonna blast in here, guns blazing as soon as he hears, right?"

This time the Prime Minister definitely smiled. "Yes, I know. We'll welcome any aid your captain can bring us, but we would rather not lose two of his crewmembers in a vain attempt to fight off a third of the second-largest fleet in the Known Worlds."

Beka winced. "That many?"

"It's a rough approximation." Though the Prime Minister tried to sound casual, throwing off that number, Beka heard the brittleness of her tone.

They talked for a few more minutes, but it truly seemed there was no reason for Beka and Tyr to stay and every reason for them to leave. Before they departed, Tyr thanked the Prime Minister for her valuable time. Beka dittoed the sentiment. They left in silence, ignoring the foray that only swelled around them.

Beka had some difficulty packing her things, as she had done some hefty shopping and not arranged any extra room in her couple of bags. She had to give up and carry the shopping bags along with her usual luggage. Tyr raised an eyebrow at the sight of her staggering under all the weight and gallantly took the shopping bags.

"So where're we going?" She turned from the pilot's seat, where she had just strapped herself in, to look at Tyr, making himself comfortable at the weapons console. "And how are we getting past that fleet?"

"I have an idea," Tyr said hesitantly, "but I doubt you'll like it."


	8. 7: Flight

A/N – Yay for new and loyal reviewers alike! Sorry I haven't replied individually to your reviews… the past week has been absolute madness. Just… madness. But you're not here to read about that!

ON TO

Chapter Seven:

"You want us to drift away from a third of the Sabra-Jaguar fleet?"

Tyr shrugged. 'If you have any better ideas… or any ideas at all… I'm quite open to suggestions. If not…"

"If not, we drift," Beka finished. She sighed and looked over the sensor data once more, hoping to see something that had escaped her the first dozen times. Nothing occurred to her. "Fine, we drift. Do you have a plan to make sure we don't drift right into their flagship?"

He brought up a map of the Schopenhauer system and zoomed in on one of the most distant planets. "Every day, a garbage scow and a supply ship travel here to the energy plant and return with…. Batteries of a sort."

Beka groaned. "We're going out with the space trash? One, I'm insulted. Two, that is so clichéd."

"That's why aren't actually going out with the space trash. Harper left one of his models for a footprint magnifier here. It won't fool anyone's sensors for very long, but we won't need very long."

"Then what will we be doing?"

"You'll see." From his console, Tyr requested an audio channel with another ship waiting in the hangar.

"Anasazi," a woman's voice purred. "and the lovely Captain Valentine, I presume. It seems your prognosis was correct."

Prognosis? Beka made a mental note to ask Tyr about that later. She remembered thinking earlier that morning that he seemed to know more than he was letting on, but she had forgotten that impression during the day's ensuing chaos.

"Lucky guess," Tyr said casually.

Beka snorted. Tyr would never admit that anything he predicted was a lucky guess. She made another mental note to ask him about that after his conversation with this mystery woman ended.

"Mm, whatever it was, it's saved me more trouble than you know. If there's any way I can return the favor, please let me know."

"Oh please," Beka muttered.

Tyr winked at her. "Thank you, I believe I'll take you up on your generous offer."

Less than an hour later, the Maru was traveling with half a dozen other escort ships with a large medical vessel, piloted by Tyr's lady friend. Beka did not like it, but in order to preserve the appearance of an escort ship, she'd had to slave the Maru's guidance to the larger ship. She had to admit that it was working when they left the system without a peep from the slowly approaching fleet. While she was attempting to needle out of Tyr exactly how he knew this velvet-voiced captain, that voice crackled through the Maru's speakers. All she said was, "brace for slipstream", but she managed to make that brief declaration sound seductive.

"Sliptream?" Beka exclaimed. "What's…. no, I don't want to follow Captain 'return the favor'." She scrambled to unlock the Maru's controls, but the ship lurched into a slip portal before she succeeded. That left them floundering in the slipstream for a split second while Beka regained piloting control. Something started beeping at her immediately, something she assumed was the Maru's annoyance at being pilotless in the slipstream.

"Beka!" Tyr shouted, "it's a Sabra scout ship. They've locked weapons."

Beka scoffed. "They're going to try to fire on us in slipstream? They're trying to fire on Beka Valentine in the slipstream! Ha!" The first shots missed the Maru by a few meters, but miss they did. The next salvo missed by a smaller margin, and the third volley skimmed the hull. Beka cursed.

Something started blaring at her, but unless things got really bad, she knew enough to stay in slipstream. She had some little advantage here, that instinct that took over when she piloted the slipstream, and the scout ship could make less use of its strengths here, namely weapons and speed. Speed alone did not do much good in the slipstream without a good pilot, and whomever they had was not as good as her.

Most people piloted the slipstream with a definite idea of their destinations in mind or at least an idea of following the ship ahead of them. Beka had neither at the moment, which could land her in a very bad place or could serve to throw the enemy ship off their tail. She trusted to instinct to keep her out of that very bad place. As for the rest… it would be a great ride, if nothing else. Her object of the moment was creating the trickiest route to follow, which meant seeking out the almost invisible – she did not actually see slipstream routes, but it was an apt description – routes that branched off the string she rode, dark little alleys anyone in their right mind would avoid. No one had recently accused Beka of being in her right mind.

She dove into twisted alley after twisted alley, trusting Tyr to inform her that the ship was still on their ass or not. To her annoyance, he told her turn after turn that the ship was still following them, though they dropped behind a little bit with every new route. Beka thought she was on her way to losing them within the next hour, a daunting span of time to spend like this but hardly impossible, when a weapons blast hit the Maru, hard. Only her safety belt saved Beka from being thrown out of her chair and into a console. More alarms blared, and then Tyr shouted the fatal words. That last shot had destabilized the slipstream drive, which was about fifteen seconds from total failure.

"Fifteen… even Harper couldn't patch us up that quickly." Well, maybe he could, but he had not been invited on this excursion. "We're getting outta here. Here's to hoping we land in the middle of Dragan war games, so they'll kill each other off." With a final jerk of the piloting controls and a shout, Beka dropped the Maru out of slipstream.

Tyr looked over the sensors and made a surprised noise. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we did not drop out in the middle of the Dragan armed forces."

"Then why do you sound so cheerful?"

"I'm not sure where we are, but the Sabra ship returned to slipstream as soon as they recognized the area."

"Great. Let's hope the old 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' adage proves true here." She engaged the barely-functional engines and headed slowly for the only sign of civilization, a large-ish drift whose name she could not recall.

"Beka, I do not know this place. Until we learn something, perhaps it would be best to keep a low profile. The Sabra ship would not have fled without good reason."

Beka considered this. It was annoying how right he was; she could not think of a single good reason to go charging into the drift's docks, much as she yearned for a good engineer or ten. They could have stumbled upon a well-armed Genite base for all she knew, or maybe it was a Dragan holding after all. Another ringing alarm decided the question, however, by informing its pilot that the strain from dropping so suddenly out of slipstream had cracked something in the drive. The exotic matter lens had jolted out of its frame to shear through the hull and was narrowly preventing the entire ship from collapsing like beer can on Harper's forehead after a long night.

What it boiled down to was quite simple. If Beka jerked the ship too hard, the lens would slip again and blow out the cracked hull. If Beka did nothing at all, the exponentially building pressure would shatter the hull around the lens.

"That means," she concluded, "that we don't have a choice. We're going to make our way to the drift, nice and slow, and then beg them to fix my ship after not killing us on sight."

Tyr left his weapons station and came to stand next to Beka. Not a twitch or frown betrayed his fear, but she could see tension in his neck, around his mouth and eyes that gave him away. He lay a warm hand on her shoulder and glanced down at her. She looked up to the full weight of his dark gaze and blinked.

"Don't worry," she said, wearing a brave smile. "Trance could pull this one off. You could pull it off. I could pull it off blindfolded, with one hand tied behind my back, after a mean night at Ashinkashay's."

"I'm sure you could," he murmured, "but please, keep your eyes open."

She babied the Maru, flew him to the drift like a mother taking her child for his first steps. It occurred to her that a kid might be just as loud as the Maru, too, screaming its objections to every move she made and counting down the scant minutes he could hold together.

Port Authority did not seem very keen on allowing her to dock until she pointed out that her ship would explode within the next three minutes if she did not turn off the engine, which she did not plan to do until she was on solid ground. They pointed out that this was her problem, not theirs, and she pointed out in turn that it would be their problem if the Maru exploded whilst in close range of the drift. Who knew what those shock waves might do to the drift's hull and delicate machinery?

She bit down on her impatience and glided into the dock closest to the machine shops. The Maru shivered to a halt. As soon as she was confident that she could leave the ship without exploding herself, Beka leapt from the Maru, closely followed by Tyr, who managed to dash out with much more grace. Mechanics dressed in stained overalls swarmed past her, chattering among themselves and ignoring her presence entirely.

After their brush with imminent doom, Beka found herself starving and told Tyr as much. They left the hangar to find a restaurant and somewhere to stay if repairs took as long as Beka feared. She hoped no one on the drift had noticed the Sabra ship or associated it with them. Over the past few days, she'd had enough of special recognition from the authorities.

The drift looked prosperous and its inhabitants cheerful, which set Beka at more ease than she had felt all day. Happy people were far less likely to accuse strangers of bringing trouble down on them and take their revenge. While she prayed that the Sabra would not think it worth their time to return, she knew that her wish was unlikely to come true. When the time came, the attitude of the drift's general populace might determine the outcome of that confrontation.

Her confidence faltered a little when she saw furtive exchanges taking place in an all too familiar scene. Tyr must have seen it, but he reacted no more than she did to the repeated deals they spotted in progress in the drift's shady corners. She did not mention it until they found and sat down at the edge of a noisy restaurant.

"I don't like it," she said in a low voice. "It's better than places where bums have the run of the place, but a single Sabra ship could slow traffic in the area, and the addicts get… unpleasant when the Flash shipments stop. The dealers are worse."

The waiter appeared from behind a partition a little too quickly for Beka's comfort, but he did not give any sign that he was disturbed by anything he might have heard. Tyr ordered the least greasy meal they could prepare, and Beka made it two. They split a large bottle of water with lemon slices on their glasses. She wondered how a place like this got real lemons.

The main question before them, though, did not concern drug dealers or lemons but how long they would wait here before attempting to contact the Andromeda or finding safer territory. Tyr thought he could discover that night how this drift had allied itself with the major powers, but the flight of the Sabra scout ship and the large human population on the drift were positive signs. He and Beka would make quiet inquiries as they shopped for whatever odds and ends they could think to buy and make firmer plans the next night.

A slightly queasy Beka followed Tyr to the lodgings they had found earlier. The lobby they had entered was shabby, with threadbare carpet and aging computers, but clean. Like the plot of any good holonovel romance, the clerk informed them that they could spare only a single room in their price range. Beka rolled her eyes. When they arrived at their room, Beka immediately called the bed with its suspicious duvet and lumpy mattress. Tyr shot her such a withering look that she relented after only a few moments and deigned to share it.

"Fine," she said, "I just hope you can control your…" She paused to flutter her eyelashes. "…baser urges," she continued in a sultry voice.

"With such company," he replied gallantly, "it will surely require a Herculean effort."

She pursued her lips and then giggled. "But you're allowed to sigh and gaze longingly. A girl needs a little ego boost now and then."

He gave her a tiny bow. "As you say."

Beka scoffed with a grin tugging at her lips and stepped into the adjoining bathroom to change into pajamas. The stressful events of the day and the heavy food she'd just eaten – despite their request – came crashing on her as they made their way to their lodgings. In a word, she was exhausted.

Before she closed the door behind her, she leaned out of the frame to call to Tyr. "By the way, you are not allowed to sleep naked, so I hope you brought something besides your leather and dress pants."

He cocked his head and gazed at her innocently. "Why Beka, are you afraid you won't be able to control your… baser urges?"

"It's been a long day."

Tyr laughed and turned to begin fishing something from his spare luggage.

When she closed the bathroom door, she found herself looking at the shower and contemplated it for a moment. It would feel heavenly to wash some of the day's worries away in steam and hot water and scented soap, but she was not sure she could stay awake

long enough to wash her hair. She did wash her face with the complimentary soap and padded out, barefoot, with a pile of worn clothes in her arms.

Tyr was still dressed, but he had loosened his leather vest and kicked off his own shoes. He gave her a cursory glance as she exited the bathroom before setting his book on the nightstand and disappearing the way she had come with a small bag. A moment later, she heard a muffled spray of water hit the bathroom tiles. She peered at the book Tyr had laid aside and discovered a bizarre lettering she could not begin to decipher. With a shrug, she turned off the lights and climbed into bed on the extreme edge of the wall side. If Tyr had wanted the wall, she reasoned, he should have said something. He did not seem like the sort of person to care much about that sort of thing anyway.

She woke halfway to a weight settling next to her and a tugging on the blankets she found herself clutching. Her sleepy mind refused to process that Tyr wanted some blanket too, so she grabbed them even more tightly. She heard a quiet chuckle and drifted back to sleep.


	9. 8: Rude Awakening

A/N : Damn you, summer-inspired laziness! Damn you! Reviews are loved and cherished forever.

ON TO

Chapter Eight:

Beka sighed contentedly as she woke up, inhaling a clean male scent and stretching her limbs across the solid body she had twined around during the night. As she stretched, a muscle pulled in her shoulder, and she grimaced. She must have slept wrong… and come to think of it, her mattress was feeling a little strange this morning. A moment later, she woke up rather more fully and groaned. Tyr lifted his head to smile down at her. Despite willing herself to stay on her side of the bed just before she fell asleep, Beka had wrapped herself thoroughly around her Nietzschean companion. The boxers she slept in had ridden up her thighs, and one strap of her camisole hung from her shoulder. She tried not to imagine the sight they must have made at that moment.

From her position on Tyr's chest, his voice rumbled lower than usual when he spoke. "I had no idea you were so… affectionate in your sleep."

She rolled away, yawned, and glared. "What do you mean, affectionate?" She glanced down at herself, reassuring herself that she was still dressed.

He smiled smugly and did not seem likely to answer until she sat up and hit him on the arm. "Tell me," she insisted. In response, he crossed his arms and showed her his teeth. She balled her hand into a fist and punched him. When she wound up to repeat the action, he lashed out and grabbed her wrist just before it fell. A surprised Beka tried to pull her arm back, but Tyr refused to let her go. He pulled in the opposite direction, causing her to tumble on top of him.

She propped herself up on her elbows and stared down at her crewmate. "Tell me."

"It becomes evident that you will not give up. Very well." He shifted under her, still clasping her wrist. "First, you splayed your limbs across most of the bed, and you looked something like this." His eyes closed, and his mouth gaped open. She considered hitting him again but feared what might happen if he caught her other wrist. Instead, she scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"No, your eyes were closed," he said archly. "Then you flopped around to face me and started drooling on the pillow."

Beka could not argue with that; she had felt the damp spot when she had first untangled herself from Tyr.

"An hour or so later, you started inching toward me." He raised his face until she could feel his breath on her face when he spoke. "You wrapped one arm around me, like this." He slid his free arm low around her back, brushing the bare skin above the waistline of her boxer shorts.

"And you threw one of your legs between mine." His knee rose between her legs as his voice dropped. "You came so close that I could have sworn that your lips brushed my skin." He whispered that last part in her ear. She could have sworn that his lips touched her earlobe, soft as his breath. "You held me like that for hours. Perhaps I should return the favor."

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. "Why are you doing this? I told you before that nothing could happen between us." She had hoped that her words would persuade him to release her, but her effort failed.

He chuckled, sending vibrations through the thin material of her shirt. "And yet you let yourself be pulled into these situations. One word from you could have stopped this, Rebecca." He planted a feather-light kiss just beneath her ear. "Or this." Those soft kisses continued down the curve of her neck, but when he reached the fallen strap of her camisole, she knew she had to end it. She let herself fall heavily on his chest before taking another deep breath and pushing herself up into a sitting position.

His expression remained as unfathomable as ever as he released her wrist from his grasp. "Is it some kind of test?" she finally asked, frustrated in more ways than one. "What, you want to see how far you can push me before I snap? Or is this a cog in your master plan to take over the Andromeda and soon, the universe? Whatever it is, I'm sick of it."

She tried to clamber off her awkward position astride his hips, but his eyes tightened in sudden anger. He sat up quickly and took advantage of her momentary imbalance to sweep her on her back. As she struggled to free herself, he clasped her hands in his and pinned them to the bed. An adrenaline rush shot through her veins, flushing her cheeks and speeding her heart rate. She twisted under him but soon gave up. Whatever else he was capable of, she did not think so little of him to imagine that he would…

"I promised I would never lie to you, Rebecca," he said after she had quieted. His dark eyes filled her vision. She could see amber tones flicker from the shadows cast by the overhead light. "You are not a test or a prize. You are the woman who has dominated my days and haunted my nights for months now. I let societally-imposed norms rule my actions, and I will be damned if I let those useless mores keep me from you any longer."

"They aren't useless," she hissed. "Gaheris loves me, and unlike every other man I've ever known," except Harper, she thought suddenly, "he isn't going to leave me because finally, I'm at the place where he wants to be."

She felt naked under his close scrutiny and realized at the same moment he did what she had not said. "Perhaps he does love you," he replied, "He is certainly… attentive. Despite our recent difficulties establishing his Commonwealth, he does appear happier now than when we first discovered the Andromeda."

Beka felt tears welling up in her eyes. She wished he would get it over with and say what he was building up to say. This reminder of how happy she made Gaheris, of how his face lit up every time he turned the corner to discover her there, was torture.

"But you do not owe him your affections. You may feel your owe him your loyalty and dedication as his First Officer and friend, but he has no claim on your heart."

She wanted to tell him that he didn't understand. It was not just that he loved her, but that he was the only possibility she had for a long-term, stable relationship. Tyr, with his stormy eyes and fiery passions and political machinations could not offer her stable and definitely not long-term. His fire might burn for her today, but what would happen when a fertile, willing Nietzschean woman showed up on his doorstep one day with those double helix arm bands and a sultry smile? She did love Gaheris and care for him deeply, and if she did harbor any nagging doubts, they were the result of an ever-uncertain past where she had always been waiting for the next betrayal.

"This time you may succeed in convincing yourself to stay, but it will not always be so. You are not a person to settle for security and affection when you might have passion. I ask only that you not make this discovery too late."

She gently loosened her hands from his and reached up to stroke his face once before curling her fingers in his hair and pulling him toward her. His full lips pressed against hers, kissing her slowly as if they had all the time in the universe. She let out a small helpless noise against the sensual onslaught when he deepened the kiss. He invaded each of her senses, filling her head with Tyr Anasazi and leaving no room for rational thought. She felt so deliciously fragile beneath him, but judging by the quickness of his breath and half-formed words that rose in his throat and died on her lips, he was as weak before her as she before him.

Unbidden, a brief image rose in her mind. She stood in front of Gaheris's desk, and somehow she knew that Tyr lurked outside the door. The picture flashed through her head for a split second, but she could pick out his dark eyelashes lying against his light copper cheek and the tension in his knuckles where he gripped the edge of the desk. He looked up just as the vision faded, and she was shocked to see the light shimmer in his eyes. "You have to choose," she heard from a very great distance. And in choosing, she thought, I must betray one of them.

She stiffened in Tyr's arms. He reacted instantly, easing his weight off her and half-sitting up. "If I do this, I'll end up a traitor to one of you. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I don't betray my friends." Without meeting his eyes, she wiggled out of the bed and grabbed the first bag of hers she saw.

"Just yourself," he called after her.

She shot into the bathroom, locking the door behind her and turning on the faucet to splash cold water on her face. Tears pooled in her eyes, to her dismay and confusion. She lathered the complimentary soap and scrubbed her face with the heels of her palms. The soap stung her eyes, and she cursed. For a few moments, she blinked soap out of her eyes and didn't think about what had just occurred outside the bathroom. It came back in an instant, though, when she could see herself in the mirror again, cheeks flushed and lips redder than normal. She stripped off her pajamas and stepped into faded black pants and a shirt she suddenly realized dipped a bit too low for comfort, considering…

Her gaze landed on the shower, and she imagined for a moment how wonderful it would feel to stand under the hot water, kneading her shoulders and streaming down her body. They did not have any urgent appointments, and she hoped Tyr might leave before she emerged from the bathroom. A skim of water remained around the edge of the shower, chilling her bare feet as she turned on and adjusted the shower.

She stayed in the shower longer than necessary, after her hair and body were clean and faintly scented. No matter how much soap she rubbed over her limbs, she thought she could smell Tyr's warm musk lingering on her. Finally she decided that it was her imagination and stepped out, dripping. Shivering in a thin towel, she noted with no little irritation that no other towels remained to drape over the bathroom tiles. She could barely keep her balance as she hurriedly dried off and pulled on her clothes. The shirt now clung to her in addition to revealing rather too much, but she was not about to show Tyr that she cared one way or another what he thought about what she wore by changing it.

To her disappointment, she saw Tyr the moment she peered around the bathroom door. She avoided his eyes as she stuffed clothes in her bag and shoved it into a corner. As she stood up, she noticed a deliciously warm aroma drifting around her. Despite herself, she turned to look questioningly at Tyr. He smiled and held a large paper bag with several bulges and a few small stains. "I don't regret my actions, but I do apologize if I made you uncomfortable. That was never my intention, but I've learned that actions… and high-calorie baked goods… speak louder than words."

The smell was too good to ignore. "You're horrible and you're not forgiven," she said without a trace of a smile, "but I'll hold off the hit on your life while you hand me the bag." He slid off the bed and handed her the bag, which exuded the scent of recently-baked goods. She abandoned her luggage to open the paper bag and was greeted with the mingled smells of aranaberry, blueberry, and pumpkin muffins only slightly smaller than her head. She could barely hold a muffin in one hand. "Okay, well, I'll tell the hitman to make it a clean death, you know, quick and painless."

"You have time to eat approximately half of one before we must meet with the mayor."

Beka paused an inch away from the muffin to regard Tyr, eyebrow raised. "Mayor? Meet?" She looked down at herself. "Does this mean I have to change?"

"Eat. Mayor Alorna is the top administrator of the drift and has requested our presence. I discovered this when I left to buy breakfast and found myself accosted by an intern on my way. I do not think… he will notice your attire."

"Perseid?" A derivative of the Vedran language, formed by a dual-sex species, Common sadly lacked any really appropriate pronouns for the hermaphroditic Perseids. 'It' seemed somehow debasing.

"Quite an effective bureaucrat, from what I understand. He seemed impatient to speak with us." He nodded at the sack she held. "If you're hungry, bring the muffins." He sounded as laconic as ever.

It annoyed Beka that he could dismiss the morning's events so easily.

She shot inquisitive, narrow-eyed glances at him while he wasn't looking until he asked her if he had sprouted an extra nose. His tone was terse rather than the usual lazy, half-amused tone he tended to take when teasing her like that, leading her to believe that perhaps this meeting was more serious than she had originally believed. After all, it was not as though he had any room to be angry with her.

When they arrived at the mayor's office – a scene which was becoming too familiar to Beka recently – she discovered the reason for Tyr's edginess, or at least the trace of tension which would be edginess in anyone else.

"The Sabra-Jaguar Nietzscheans have requested that we submit to a boarding party and allow them to confiscate you and your vessel."


	10. 9: Drifting

A/N – I think this chapter is a bit short, but you'll get another soon! Enjoy!

ON TO

Chapter Nine:

"We are loathe to comply," Mayor Alorna hastened to assure them. "The F.T.A values our prosperity very highly, as you may know, and would take it amiss if we allow ourselves to be intimidated by the Nietzscheans. They are…" The Perseid dropped his (her? its?) voice and glanced at the clock, then around the empty conference room, "very lenient as regards inspections. You must have noticed…"

"We did," Beka interrupted. "How generous of the F.T.A." Apparently, the Free Trade Association had decided to allow the rampant drug trade on Tintar rad Yist, so long as the mayor continued to tax it heavily and funnel a percentage of the proceeds to the organization, along with the usual bribes and fees. Other drifts worked the same racket with prostitution and money-laundering, technically illegal among F.T.A. adherents. It was not a question of organizational ethics but simple public relations. They could keep up a veneer of respectability by outlawing these vices, even if they did little to enforce the regulations and indeed took advantage of the infractions.

"Yes, precisely. If we cave to pressure from these Sabras, it will send the wrong message to some of our regular business partners. The most respectable entrepreneurs look for stability, and if we give the impression that we cannot offer that, other… less scrupulous characters will take their place." And then crime would skyrocket, the legal business close, the middle-class residents depart… Was he looking at the clock again?

"So, you're on our side?" Beka asked, disbelief clear in her tone. She had expected to be handed over on a silver platter to the powerful combined Pride, or at least an attempt by the mayor to do so followed by a daring escape on her part.

The Perseid, remarkably calm for a chin-head in what must be a highly stressful position aside from the chronic glances at the time, looked down at his knobby fingers. "Yes, well, it would seem that way, for the present. Of course, you are welcome to our hospitality as is any other law-abiding guest", which included the drug dealers and addicts, as Tintar rad Yist lacked any substance control laws, "but…"

"But you would welcome our quiet departure even more than our valued business," Tyr finished, looking bored at the scene in front of him.

Mayor Alorna leaned forward over his desk. For once, his eyes stayed trained on them for an entire minute. "I was very sincere when I said that we will not relinquish you to the Sabras," he insisted fervently. "I have convinced some of my employees at great personal risk to escort you out of the system, as far as you feel need of their protection… if you should choose to accept." His blue hands picked at each other, and Beka observed that perhaps he was every bit as twitchy as most Perseids, just better at hiding it.

Beka looked at Tyr, who offered a minute shrug in reply. She sighed. Sometimes he was perfectly useless. "Oh," she began slowly, "we'll have to, you know, discuss it… We'll get back to you, um soon. Very soon." She picked up the bag by her feet. "Muffin?"

As he refused, he sneaked another glance at the clock.

They walked aimlessly around the drift, talking about the mayor's proposition, the strength of the Sabra ships he had reported, and the possible locations of the Andromeda at that moment. The seriousness of the present situation was almost enough to make Beka forget for an hour or so what had happened between them, but the Nietzschean's simple proximity made it impossible to completely block it out. It did not help when Tyr said Gaheris's name in a too-casual tone, as if they were discussing blueberry muffins.

"There was something else," Tyr said slowly.

Beka looked at him sharply. Great. Somethings else never meant good news.

"Something Alorna wasn't telling us."

"What makes you say that?" Okay, this was a little better. She could handle chin-heads she barely knew keeping secrets from her much better than Nietzschean crewmates who might harbor a raging passion or a diabolical scheme for her. "He was twitchy, but you can't blame the guy for being nervous… or a Perseid."

He grinned at her, and she buried her face in the last muffin. She wished he would not smile that secret little smile at her, like they shared a private joke. She wished his eyes wouldn't sparkle in amusement like that, flecks of amber rising from chocolate brown.

"It wasn't just the… twitch. He appeared extremely interested in the time. During most of our meeting, he could barely concentrate on what he was saying to us."

Beka brushed the final pumpkin muffins from her chin with a regretful sigh. It had been a long time since she had eaten muffins that large or that delectable. She brushed them off in a hurry, hoping Tyr would not seize the opportunity to run an errant finger down her cheek or whatever it was romantically-inclined Nietzscheans did to human women they were either trying to seduce or machinate, or both.

"I think Sabra ships ready to fire upon one's drift tend to have that effect," she replied. "Maybe he was counting…" She glanced up, revelation dawning in her eyes. "You think they gave him an ultimatum. Why wouldn't he tell us about that not insignificant detail?"

Tyr shrugged. "It's hard to say. Alorna is quite obstinate about not giving into the Sabras, not for our own sake but for his. He certainly knows of Andromeda's reputation, and by association, ours." He said that last part rather dryly. The Andromeda and her captain might fly to the rescue of every down and out victim of oppression, but Tyr was hardly the motor behind all that. "He may simply believe that we will surrender to the Sabras if we imagine the inhabitants of Tintar rad Yist to be in danger."

"That's an awfully optimistic vision of things for Tyr Anasazi." Though she had sworn not to touch him again unless forced to perform CPR and no one else was available, Beka found herself reaching up to lay the back of her hand against Tyr's forehead. "Are you feeling all right? Did Harper's pod people abduct the real Tyr? Would that explain… Never mind."

He cast her an amused look that said he knew exactly what she had been about to say but chose to refrain from commentary. "Or he's arranging a deal with highest-ranking officer to kidnap us during lunch and present us to Charlemagne and his bride as a wedding present."

"Much better."

During their walk, they stopped by the machine shop Beka thought she remembered near the hangar. She checked on her faithful Maru and discovered with no small trace of disappointment that he was still out of commission and would be for several more hours. Even Tyr looming behind her, trimming his nails with that knife he had tucked into his belt earlier that morning, could not induce the mechanic to reduce the estimate. She realized with a shock that for once, a mechanic had not inflated his estimated repair time by three in order to impress his customer when he finished early.

They decided that, for the moment, they would go along with Alorna's plan to smuggle them out of the system without alerting the waiting Sabras, not because either Tyr or Beka liked the idea but because neither could think of anything better. That had happened a lot lately, she thought as they spoke with the mayor for the second time that day. Until they had a better idea of the Maru's capabilities and the state of the Sabras sitting at the drift's doorstep, they had little option but to wait for news.

At dinner, as Beka forced conversation and kept her eyes focused on her plate, an ear-splitting crash and a quake that splashed water from their glasses all over the table announced a drastic change in situation. Beka cursed and was left to pay the bill when Tyr dashed off to speak with Alorna. She did so as quickly as possible before running to the mayor's office.

She opened the door to a scene she might have found comical under other circumstances. Tyr towered over the skinny, seated Perseid, shouting something as the mayor tried to shrink into his chair. He whirled around when he heard the door creak open, and for a second, Beka felt a little like disappearing herself.

"Hi guys, just thought I'd stop in. So I noticed a, uh, little explosion during dinner and wondered if someone could tell me what just blew up?" Nothing like a little humor to diffuse a situation.

"Proximity mines," Tyr said through gritted teeth. "He knew this was coming."

The Perseid, probably relieved that another person had come in and that the angry Nietzschean was unlikely to kill him in the presence of a witness, shifted in his chair and took a deep breath. "I-I knew… well yes, I had an idea… It wasn't supposed to happen for another two hours! I thought that perhaps… hmm, well, to be perfectly accurate, I was not sure what it was I hoped for, but I believed I had a little more time to-"

Tyr shook a warning finger at Alorna, who promptly terminated his babbling. Beka saw the expression which meant he was searching for a particularly creative and vicious insult. While she was sorry to miss one of Tyr's barbs, it occurred to her that this was not the most productive use of their time.

"Well, we don't. So let's stop yelling at each other and try to work out something useful." She stepped forward and place a hand on Tyr's fist, gently lowering it until it dropped to his side. He glared at her for a moment before turning to frown at the wall.


	11. 10: Making Up Her Mind

Chapter Ten:

As early as the next morning, Beka noticed a change in the general mood of the drift. Most of the passers-by already recognized them on sight as the instigators of this stand-off with the Sabra-Jaguar pride. People stared and whispered and narrowed their eyes, but no one dared any angry words or worse. Somehow, muffins the size of a small child's head didn't taste quite as good when Beka was sure the baker hated her along with everyone else.

The drift engineers had arrested the lazy drift of Tintar rad Yist (hence the name _drift_, Beka realized with a silent giggle), so they would not run into any more of the mines, but they had not yet isolated any exploitable weakness in the design of the mines. No one had thought to arm Tintar rad Yist with offensive weapons, and the mines would blast any ship out of the sky before it could move more than a few kilometers from the hangar docks.

And after all this, Tyr and Beka found themselves unable to carry out their original goal in coming here, conducting some quiet business, maybe discovering a rumor of the Andromeda's location if they were very lucky. Recent events had borne out Beka's suspicions of exactly how far she lived from 'very lucky'. But not even what felt by now like chronic bad luck could succeed against the natural human tendency – and probably of other species, too – to gather around diversion from the usual routine. Although the muffin baker seemed to hate them, a few people she met did not stare off into the wall and hurry away when she tried to approach them.

Somehow she entered into conversation with a man quite a bit older than her but still attractive for all that, and he seemed positively giddy to be talking with someone so important in the galactic scheme of things that the Sabras were on the cusp of actually launching a siege of Tintar rad Yist on their behalf.

"So what are they gonna do?" he asked as they made a lazy circuit of the hangars. His wide eyes would have suited a five year old and made her smile in spite of herself.

"The Sabras? Hell if I know. I think that'll depend on what we do, and we haven't exactly figured that out yet." That was her standard line when asked, not that she was asked as often as one might think. There was not much to divulge just yet, but if there were, not even a cute older guy who apparently could not get enough of her company, would change her mind.

He laughed. "That's the best way to keep 'em on their toes." The man nodded at the neat rows of ships lined up down the length of the hangar. "Which one's yours?"

"The broken one." The mechanics, even spurred by the Mayor himself, kept running into obstacles when they tried to fix the Maru. The sub-light engines had their problems and the slipstream drive had its problems, and evidently the life support systems had been functioning by a minor miracle when Beka docked. "If it were otherwise, we would have made our clever escape by now."

He gaped at her. "Even with the mines?" he asked incredulously.

"Hey," she replied with a grin, "you haven't seen me pilot."

She thought she spotted the Maru far in the distance and a couple of mechanics swarming over his hull. She longed to check on her baby, but she did not feel completely comfortable bringing this stranger with her. The thought of anyone else seeing the Maru in such a state physically hurt her. It had been hard enough letting Harper into the engine room all those years ago.

Her companion laughed but looked a bit uncertain. "So… you think you can do it?"

"I don't see why not," she said airily. "I've… well, I don't think I'm supposed to divulge all the messy details, but suffice to say, people say it's impossible until I pilot it."

After they left the hangar, Beka sneaked past the bakery and peered in for a brief moment. Brief as her appearance was, the proprietor saw her and glared. She sighed. "It's official. No more muffins the size of my head." The aroma of baking followed them until they turned into the next corridor.

In a flash, Beka remembered the time and the appointment she had made about five minutes ago to meet with Tyr and the mayor. She left her admirer looking forlorn and rather confused, secretly relieved to have found a good reason to abandon him. Maybe she had been spending too much time around Tyr, but this hanging-on annoyed her. He hardly dared disagree with her on anything and laughed a little too hard at her witticisms.

The mayor had nothing helpful to say, relaying bad news on all fronts. The drift's few defensive weapons showed no sign of damaging the mines in any meaningful fashion; repairs on the Maru were progressing very slowly; and they had picked up fragments of chatter from the Sabra ships which seemed to imply that a larger force would join them within a day. Beka could think of nothing helpful to add but was glad to see that Tyr had calmed since the last time he met with Alorna. They left the Perseid with an appointment for the next day and still no idea for how they would break this impasse.

When they returned to their room, the two crewmates occupied themselves quietly, reading flexis and surfing through the channels on the local entertainment network. Tyr projected an air rather more taciturn than usual, and when Beka tried to start a conversation, he answered in monosyllables or not at all. She rolled her eyes and wished just a little for her earlier, talkative companion.

Well, Beka Valentine did not need someone else to continually amuse her. She found an old holovideo, widely pronounced a classic but one she had never seen. Harper had introduced her to the wonders of popcorn, so she decided to be lazy and order some up from the drift's grocery. To her delight, they not only stocked popcorn but a self-popping bag, complete with salt and something called butter flavor. Tyr raised an eyebrow when she ordered it but raised no objection.

Five minutes after the order arrived, along with some things Beka thought she might like to eat later, she flopped on the bed and ripped open the popcorn bag. Fragrant steam spewed out of the bag and made her eyes water. "Ouch." She sneaked a glance at Tyr, who had not seemed to notice. "I got us some sandwich stuff and self-heating soup." No answer. "Do you mind if I turn this up?" she asked, nodding towards the large monitor opposite the bed.

He looked up from his book – a real book, Beka had never seen one of those outside a museum or Tyr's hands – to glance at the screen and give a tiny shrug.

"Oh-kay, I guess that's a no." She turned up the volume a bit louder than necessary, hoping to provoke some reaction. Soon, though, she lost herself in the plot and forgot to try to provoke a reaction. At one point, she became so caught up that she shouted and threw popcorn at the screen.

"It's no use," Tyr said suddenly. "The handsome stranger will turn up at the drift just as she has finished preparing her shuttle for take-off, and…" He sighed. "That's why it's one of the classic tragedies of its time."

Beka turned her head to glare to see him grinning faintly at her over his book. While she was relieved to discover that he was not ignoring her for some mysterious reason of his own, he did not have to ruin the holovid for her! She reached down to scoop up some popcorn to throw at him but came up with nothing but greasy fingers. Instead, she crumpled the self-heating bag and threw it at him. Of course, he caught it deftly and tossed it in the trash. She scoffed and returned her attention to the vid.

The hour for bed approached faster than Beka liked, and soon she was gazing longingly at the mediocre mattress and eyeing Tyr nervously. He must have noticed her discomfort but said nothing, still engrossed in his book. She went through her nightly routine and left the bathroom in her trusty pajamas. While she was changing, Tyr had turned off every light but the small lamp he used to read. She fell asleep more quickly than she would have thought, before she had to worry about him joining her.

The next couple of days took on a dreamy cast, with the mines and increasing numbers of Sabra-Jaguar ships outside the drift (Beka did not know when exactly Charlemagne tapped his own ships for the effort), along with the widening divide apparent inside the drift, between those who wanted to throw Tyr and Beka to the encircling Nietzscheans and those who had been pushed too far by übers all their lives and thought this would be a good time to take a stand against them. It was somehow amusing to be in the center of such an ideological battle, or would have been under less dire circumstances.

She would have thought that all of the people who conducted business on the drift would have been in the first camp, but they were evenly divided, excepting the drug dealers. They hated the sudden halt in traffic, and she suspected that the addicts were no happier. It was an accepted trait of life on Tintar rad Yist that the resident dealers conned the traveling buyers and the resident buyers robbed the traveling dealers. They were too good to fool each other.

They scared Beka a little every time she stepped foot outside her room, but they gave her an idea. The idea scared her too, but she was starting to suspect that it was the only chance she had. She decided to ponder it for a day or two before following through. She wished there was someone unbiased she could ask for advice, but she knew very well that Tyr and Alorna would be horrified at the suggestion. It horrified her too.

The decision was made for her one evening after she had gone to harass the mechanics and murmur reassuring words to her Maru. To her great surprise, they had nearly finished with repairs. Another long day of work and it would be finished, and it was not as if they had much other work at the moment, one of them informed her with a sullen glare. She heard a commotion from one of the corridors making its way into the hangar bay and instinctively ducked behind her ship.

A woman came limping in, trying to run with the weight of a large infant in her skinny arms. She was crying and screaming for a medical transport for her child, who was bright red and did not seem to be breathing. The mechanics tried to explain to her that they had nothing to do with the order to keep all ships docked, but she kept insisting that one of the ready a ship for her until a few uniformed security officers appeared from another direction.

They spoke with her quietly and left with the woman supported between two of them, the third holding the child. They promised to take her and her child to one of the doctors stationed around the drift while she wept and begged them to let her go. The child needed a specialist, it seemed, who lived about twenty minutes away on a well-traveled slipstream route. She could not even call the specialist to ask him to make a house call.

When she ran into Tyr later that day, he noticed her distraction and asked what was wrong. She replied that she was still distraught over the hatred of the muffin baker, and even though he clearly did not believe her, he did not press the issue. She was glad; she was not sure how long she could have held out under his interrogation.

The next morning she woke up early and avoided him all day, doing a bit of shopping and sitting in a café with a holonovel she had picked up while waiting in line. Somehow the hours passed before she checked on the Maru and discovered that it was finally ready to fly. Well, 'ready' might be an overstatement… it was capable of sustained sub-light and slipstream travel, at least enough for them to find the Andromeda. She had an idea of where they might be and was sure Tyr had more than a hunch.

When she had the Maru prepped for take-off, much to the consternation of the mechanics, she sent a brief, encrypted communiqué to Alorna, stating that she had a plan for getting her and Tyr out his hair… figuratively speaking… which required only his permission for the Maru's departure. By this time, he was too frazzled to argue and immediately replied with his consent. All she had left to do was send a messenger to find Tyr and tell him to hurry his ass back to the hangar.

He would not be happy, she knew as she assembled the final, critical ingredients for her scheme. He would not be happy, but he would live… and she would live, and no more little children with heart defects or brain tumors would die because of them. When she heard the outer hatch open to admit her crewmate, she shook the bottle, inhaled deeply, and dropped a single milky drop in each eye.


	12. 11: An Escape

A/N: This is the last chapter, and it will be followed shortly by an epilogue. Thanks so much to my readers and reviewers (especially **prin69**, but I love you all!). I hope you've enjoyed this wacky adventure in the tUM universe!

ON TO

Chapter Eleven:

"All right, okay, everyone prepped for launch?" She knew Tyr must have known from the minute he entered the cockpit what was happening, but he said nothing. "Great, let's blow this popsicle stand! Well, head-sized muffin stand. I mean, the muffins are head-sized, not the stand. I mean… you know what I mean." She checked her sensors to make sure that she was not about to crash into any of the waiting ships in the hangar and sent her request to launch to Port Authority. While she waited, she drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair and hummed under her breath.

"What are planning to do about the luggage you left behind?"

She spun around as far she could in her seat, annoyed by his too-calm voice. It was the voice she used to use with Harper when he had one of his panic attacks. He knew, and the bastard was patronizing her!

"Luggage? What the hell does that matter, huh? We're gonna save the world, well save these poor schmucks, from a fate worse than death, by which I mean a hostile takeover from the inside by desperate drug addicts. Screw the luggage, they can send it to the Andromeda as a token of their gratitude. Send it first class so nothing breaks, not that I have anything to break."

By the time she finished this little rant, she had received her authorization and was halfway to the airlock. When the outer hatch began lumbering open, she gunned the engines and sped through with perhaps a foot to spare on either side. She cackled, thinking of what Tyr's face must have looked like for a moment there.

"Okay, now the mines. Ready or not, here we come! Everyone in their hiding places? Good. Time to put those genetically-enhanced reflexes to work. See, you're not the only one, Tyr."

He said nothing, but she could feel the weight of his eyes and that damn contemptuous, mocking smile. She gritted her teeth and glared at the display on her console. Now was the time to focus on the mines lurking out there in the darkness and the Sabra ships, probably waiting in passive sensor mode to catch anyone stupid enough to attempt the maze of mines and smart enough to make it out alive. She giggled at the thought that she was both and would have to be smarter still to avoid those ships.

"So before we delve too deep, we better have a destination in mind. I figure you must've picked up something on that drift, something about the Andromeda's current locations? 'Cause you know, last time we didn't do too well with the Sabras on our ass and no specific port in mind."

"I would suggest you begin with San-Ska-Re, as our captain will surely be seeking reinforcements to combat Bolivar's open hostilities towards our valued allies. That is, assuming we leave this system in one reasonably large piece."

"Thanks. That little bit at the end was real helpful, 'Gee Beka, try not to get us vaporized,'. I'll keep that in mind because otherwise, you know, I would have forgotten that part."

She muttered under her breath as she piloted through the minefield, avoiding the cloaked mines almost instinctively and reacting to the sensor data faster than even she would have believed possible. Possible before, of course. Now she was more than human, superhuman. She wanted to giggle again but clenched her jaw. Tyr would say something soon, she knew it. And then she would want to leave her post and slap him, hard, finally give a little after she had been taking his crap for so damn long.

Then she struck the first mine of the day, and all thoughts of laughter fled. It was a light blow, starboard side not too near the engines, but it frustrated her. This should not happen, not even once, not to Beka Valentine and her super powers. The stuff she was on was not worth anything less than perfection; she knew what it could do. She had seen it. Thanks to Uncle Sid and his merry men, she had felt it first-hand. A vision of the mother and her child rose in her mind. For them, it was worth the after.

"The ships are massing," Tyr announced and relayed the coordinates.

Beka narrowed her eyes. "Thanks, but like you said, we better concentrate on getting out of here alive before we turn our attention to trifling matters like the third largest fleet out for blood. Are you worried yet, Tyr, concerned for your millions of potential offspring and plots you got swimming back there? I bet you are, never had any confidence in me. Think I'm weak, I know you do. Think I'm-"

Another explosion, more serious, cut her off a moment later. The mine had hit nothing vital, but another brush like that could do a lot of damage.

"I said nothing when I detected your elevated heart rate and adrenaline levels and nothing when you insulted me because I believed your… self-medication might work, but please try to remain focused until we are beyond the reach of our enemies. Then you may insult me as much as you like. You will have no further opportunity to do so if we are dead."

The words burned in Beka's brain, the words and that half-annoyed, half-mocking tone. Always mocking her. Always teasing her. She would show him. But he was right about one thing, she had to put off thinking about all that until after they had left the system alive. She drew upon every last ounce of strength she could find in herself and funneled every shred of concentration into the task in front of her. The mines appeared like little twinkling lights on her screen, innocuous as anything to the eye, and after a while she thought she could detect a pattern amid the random scattering of the mines, though she knew that this was impossible.

Her super powers slowed time down, so it seemed that everything but her and her ship were moving in slow motion, wading through honey. Even the blinking of the little silvery lights onscreen seemed slower than usual. She could imagine what the Nietzscheans must have been seeing on their own viewscreens and their disbelief that anyone could be doing what she was doing. They especially would not believe it of a human, a kludge, an inferior specimen.

"No, gotta focus," she muttered. "Focus on the twinkly lights, there you go, Rocket."

Her dad used to talk like that sometimes, when he… delete that thought. Focus. To her very great horror, she thought she could feel her reflexes slowing, nanosecond by nanosecond. They were nearing the end of the minefield, but they were not out of the main press just yet. She needed several more minutes, and the bottle was so close, but she did not dare take her hands off the controls. Earlier, she had stuffed the bottle in the jacket slung around her chair, within easy reach.

The ship brushed another mine, and she made her decision. "Tyr!" she shouted. "I need you to administer, um, another dose. I'm slowing down, I can feel it. I know what you're thinking, and you can chew me out later… Divine knows you will… but if you want to live to propagate your kids and your plots, you gotta give me another hundred milliliters."

He did not hesitate but hastened to her side.

"In the left pocket of my… yeah, you got it. Get it ready…" She tilted her head up just as another pale drop fell toward her face. She maneuvered her face, and the drop landed neatly in one eye. "Great, now the other." Before she had reached the next mine, she felt a burst of speed race through her veins. "Great job, everyone. Orders of the Empress are in order." She cackled. "Okay, gotta focus."

A few minutes later they had cleared the minefield and now had only to avoid the ships as Beka searched out the closest location for a slip portal. The planets and distant sun made for some difficulty, especially since the enemy ships were gathered around the best spots. She could fly straight at them and hope to startle them into not shooting her or fly as fast as she could in the other direction and hope she had enough of a head start. Not even a super-powered Beka would try to startle Nietzscheans into not shooting, so she forced the Maru's engines amid screaming protests as fast as they would go.

Weapons fired all around them, but she made it into slipstream before any landed. She shouted with joy when the swirling maw opened ahead of her and laughed a little hysterically as she felt the slipstream drive kick in and pull the Maru into the slipstream. "We made it! Praise the Divine and Tintar's entrepreneurs! Whaddya say we celebrate with one more dose of Beka's extra-strength super power juice?"

As she piloted one-handed, she reached around to her jacket, only to find her arm stopped short of its goal. It was Tyr, of course. Now that she had saved his precious DNA for another day, he wasn't going to let her have any fun. She struggled briefly, but not even her super powers could overwhelm a determined über with a grudge, at least not one-handed. She could remedy that. With a shout, she stood up and threw off his grasp, only to be thrown to the deck as the Maru pitched, suddenly directionless in the slipstream. Tyr swore and grabbed the piloting controls.

"That's my job," she screamed, "get out! I don't need you to do my job for me. I got us outta there good enough, didn't I?" She tried to pry his hands from the controls and was shoved so hard that she stumbled, barely catching herself on a convenient rail.

"You, wait in your quarters until I have found the Andromeda or you come down from this." Without peeling his eyes from the viewscreen, he fished the bottle from her pocket and smashed it on the deck. She screeched and dove for the puddle at his feet, hoping to soak up another few milliliters with her sleeve. "You're pathetic," he said, "grubbing on the floor for your drug. I'm actually quite grateful that you chose the captain's lukewarm affections, seeing you like this."

As she frantically pressed her clothes, hands, even tongue to the deck, she began sobbing. "Pathetic? You're pathetic, Tyr, and you're not even a good actor. I knew all along what you were doing back there, pretending that you…" She hiccupped and slammed both hands against the hard deck. They tingled, and she thought distantly that she might have sprained something. "I knew you would never want me like that because I'm just a tool to you, a defective tool you can use and throw away when the time is right. Well, Gaheris knows I'm defective too, but he's not scared like you. At least he can be strong, even if neither of us are."

She curled up where she sat and wept into her arms. A minute or an hour later, she felt the ship lurch back into normal space and drift. She thought she heard Tyr send a message, to the computer's warning that it would not reach the Andromeda for nearly two hours. Then they were close, finally. She could crawl into the Med bay and give herself over to Trance's ministrations and Gaheris's concern. And more importantly, his sweet, steady love.

She felt Tyr kneel beside her, felt the disturbance of the air and the faint warmth emanating from him. "You're right," he whispered.

She glanced up out of sheer surprise. His thumbs stroked her tear-swollen face, then moved to her shoulders as he gently pulled her up. He smiled softly. "I am perhaps a bit afraid of you and your… let us say, your humanity."

"I hurt," she moaned. "I itch all over. I need more… please, just let me mix one more dose, a little one. I need to go down easy. Cold turkey'll kill me this time." His grip on her shoulders tightened, and she began to struggle. "Please, let me go. Just one more, and I'll be fine. Gaheris doesn't even have to know. I won't tell if you don't… it can be our secret, like the rest of that damn trip. Please."

He did not answer but led her through the cockpit. For a moment, her heart soared before she realized that he was guiding her to her quarters. "No, not my quarters," she said urgently, "I left the ingredients back in the cockpit. I'll go to bed as soon as I get just a teeny bit more, I promise."

Even as she pleaded, she knew it was useless. She would never taste it again, her super powers. From now on, for the rest of her life, she would just be plain old Beka Valentine, defective kludge extraordinaire. No, just ordinaire. The pride that usually prevented her from crying in front of anyone had broken down as the Flash left her system, and now Tyr was getting damp from her streaming tears. He held her close, partly so she could lean on him as the drug left her system and partly so she could not escape.

Sooner, much sooner than she would have liked, she found herself in her quarters. Tyr left the cabin dark as he led her through the hatch. Despite her protests, he firmly put her to bed, and just to be sure she did not get up in a few minutes, lay down beside her. His strong arms wrapped around her, and she sobbed into his chest. If he murmured anything to her, she did not hear over the sounds of her agony.


	13. Epilogue

A/N: This is the kind of ending I personally love to hate. Enjoy (and review)!

ON TO

Epilogue:

It was not long after that mission that Beka began to suspect that her lover was preparing himself to deal with Tyr in a very permanent way. At first, she tried to send hints that she did not approve of his plans. After nearly a month of terrible suspense, she found she could take it no longer and voiced her opinions on the matter quite vocally. She thought she saw something ugly in those beautiful eyes when she defended Tyr, but to his credit, Gaheris did not state aloud any suspicions he might have had on that score. He repeated what she already knew and sentiments with which, frankly, she could not disagree.

That Tyr was plotting something was pretty evident. Even if he managed to cover his tracks well enough that no one could figure out exactly what it was, Beka never doubted that he was scheming something that would not benefit the rest of the Andromeda. She saw the way he clashed more and more often with Andromeda's captain and started to worry about her own safety and that of her crew.

The week before his death, Beka had felt a thunderstorm brewing in Andromeda's corridors, palpable as the rise in ozone and visible as the dark clouds that would signal such a storm planetside. She stayed in her quarters as much as she could, afraid to wander the corridors and see something she did not want to see and would not be able to forget. The others knew what was happening as well as she did, but they were little comfort. Tyr never looked at Harper or Trance the way he still looked at her sometimes, sometimes inviting and sometimes warning and sometimes like he knew a secret.

The worst of it was not the tension in the air or the sense of failure that pervaded their missions. The worst was that she never warned Tyr about the captain's intentions. She told herself over and over that he did not need the warning, that he knew what was coming. In a way, it was the worst-kept secret on the Andromeda. The only question was when the confrontation would take place, what little dispute might set it off.

Still, when she heard from a solemn Gaheris that Tyr was dead, her first instinct was to blame herself. She should have done something or said something, should have tried to make peace between them one more time. A tiny voice whispered that she should have left with Tyr when he offered, that in doing so she might have spared both men. She loved Gaheris and knew that he loved her as no one had loved her before and probably never would again, but sometime during those torturous hours of internal struggle, she had been forced to admit that she had loved Tyr as well.

That was why she had to go. Gaheris probably thought it was because she could not stay with someone who had so callously killed his crewmate, the second time he had done so, or that she could not tolerate the ever-darkening future ahead of them. What spurred her to leave was neither of those, though he would never know, and ultimately, the reason made no difference.

She left because every corridor presented a different memory of Tyr, and every memory of those eyes pierced through the justifications she had thrown up in her defense. In her dreams, he accused her of that most heinous of crimes, murder of one she loved. He accused her of cowardice too, and betrayal, but the worst crime of the lot was murder of he whom she had loved even as she had loved another. Sometimes his ghost joined that of her father, and they gazed at her, reproachful and angry and silent.

Always silent.


End file.
